


Supplemental Readings

by FANFAN867



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: F/M, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-19 04:53:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29994168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FANFAN867/pseuds/FANFAN867
Summary: What happens to Jeff and Britta after season six, when there's no movie, just life.
Relationships: Britta Perry/Jeff Winger
Comments: 5
Kudos: 17





	Supplemental Readings

**Author's Note:**

> This is how I imagine things works out for Britta and Jeff in the end. Because things work out in the end.
> 
> There are a lot of little references in here, but I have not watched most of season 6 because I can't stand how they treated Britta in what I have seen, so if things aren't cannon, consider it AU!

After that final night of the Nipple Dippers, there was no seventh season and no movie. Instead, life went on.

Frankie was hired away by a large global consulting firm for an obscene amount of money. Her farewell had been done in a reasonable and efficient manner, but rumor had it her joyous screams of escape could be heard long after her car had left the parking lot.

Chang finally found the power and adoring sycophants he sought when he used his position on the board to successfully run for a seat left vacant in the state senate when the incumbent mysteriously disappeared after being caught on hot mic insulting air conditioner repairers.

The Dean stayed at Greendale, doing his “dean-a-ling” best as he called it, though he did gain brief notoriety when he got 12th place on a 10-contestant season of a national drag show _._

Miraculously, Abed was able to find and free Troy after he secured a grant through the National Endowment for the Arts to create a documentary of his search. It also didn’t hurt that Abed also was able to gain the backing of a donor who wished to stay anonymous. While Abed would never confirm the identity of this mysterious benefactor, the group had their suspicions when, during the Q&A session after the documentary’s screening, a reporter asked who Abed would want to play him in a movie about his life. Abed answered, “Nicholas Cage. Without a doubt. The man’s a genius. Finest actor to ever live.”

Annie stayed on the east coast, completing her internship and finishing up her remaining classes, until she could apply to be an agent. Her texts to the group often mentioned how she had found a great group of fellow interns, but assured them they were not nearly as great as the study group, or Save Greendale Committee, or even the Nipple Dippers. She was sharing a two-bedroom, one-bath apartment with three other interns – one with the DEA, one with the NGA, and one with the NEA – which could be intense, but since they were all Type-A go-getters, they were rarely all home at the same time and the apartment was always clean. In a private text to Jeff, she mentioned that it was also hard to find alone time in an apartment that crowded, which was why she was glad to have a friend and fellow intern named Richard who had his own place. Jeff texted back he was glad for her, and since there were no random emojis, she knew he was. Their text mostly stopped after that.

And that just left Jeff and Britta.

Britta finally finished her degree and, when an academic advisor role opened up at Greendale, she applied. As she had her degree, had been a staple at Greendale for so long, and was the only applicant, she was a shoe-in for the position. But to everyone’s surprise, it was a role that she was actually good at. Not for the students, necessarily, but for the school.

Britta’s approach to academic advising was to encourage students to follow their passions and not be a slave to what society thinks they should take. This, in turn, motivated clueless students to change majors often and take multiple classes, which brought in a surprising amount of tuition and revenue. She even won an award for employee of the semester - an award created by the Dean, shortly after she told Jeff City College had called to talk about an open position on their campus.

Her day job, plus the money she made still bartending some weekends, and the few “just because” gifts from her parents now that they were on better terms, meant that, for once in her life, she was on stable ground. She was able to move into a decent apartment closer to campus, and buy a car that didn’t require duct tape.

For his part, Jeff had begun to cope with being in his 40s. He still drank too much, but was embracing the role of “distinguished professor” in the eyes of the young coeds, even though Britta would stand behind their backs and gag whenever she’d catch one of them hanging around his office flirting. He even bought a small house near the campus that, while lacking the luxuries of his high-rise condo many years ago, did provide him a covered front porch, a small backyard, shaded streets for going for a run, and most importantly, did not share a hall with the Dean. It did, however, boast a hand-crafted Italian faucet in his bathroom.

In a surprising twist, he also found a side career as a legal consultant. Not at his old firm, as once had been offered, but for local non-profits. Britta had dragged him to one of her volunteer group meetings when a developer was threatening to take away their meeting space (their “study room” she had called it pleadingly, after he said “no” the first dozen times she’d asked him to come), and he was able to help them create a strategy to not only stay, but to get the developer to pay their rent for six months. When it was all done, he was getting calls from other groups in similar distress, and Britta had looked at him like he was her hero.

After that, the coeds stopped coming around his office.

____

Over months, and then years, they rehashed a lot of old ground and covered new. When Jeff’s brother showed up at his house one afternoon asking to move in, it was actually Britta who convinced Willy, Jr. that he should follow his own passions and path, which incidentally turned out to be working as a professional nanny.

And when Britta’s very short engagement to her boyfriend Rock (no relation to “ _the_ Rock” he’d insist, even when no one asked) ended, Jeff was the first person she called. He was there when it finally clicked that she wasn’t the type of person to be with a man named Rock anymore. He was hiding in the back when Rock came over to take back _the_ rock he had given Britta (she had asked him to stay just in case her nerve faltered while Rock was there). And Jeff was quietly playing games on his phone next to her in bed two days later as she yelled at Rock over her cell that she would never be someone’s property and to not call again.

And so it went between the two: lunches on campus, dinner often, drinks most times, and the frequent “what are you doing tonight” or “you up?” texts that generally meant they wouldn’t be spending the night alone.

It stayed that way until her 37th birthday. It had been just the two of them on a Friday night. Jeff had taken her to dinner and a modern art gallery, until they realized they were both bored, and went back to drink at his place after. The next morning, as she was getting ready to leave, out of nowhere, he asked her if she wanted to stay. Not for sex, necessarily, or any other particular reason, just because he wanted her to stay.

So, she did.

They spent the day not doing much of anything. He ran the laundry; she did the dishes. She folded the laundry; he redid the dishes. They watched TV, comfortable as she laid against him while a soccer match played. Long ago, they had realized that while Britta generally wasn’t a fan of competitive sports, she was surprisingly into soccer, given the global nature of it, the minimal barbarism and the dominance of the women’s U.S. team (though she did take the time to Google their pay disparity).

Later, they went to feed Britta’s cat. They would have also grabbed a few of her things, but that morning Britta had discovered she actually had everything she needed already at Jeff’s place (she even had a not-so-secret hiding spot in his bathroom cabinet). They stopped for lunch, and then groceries, and then gas, taking time to bicker about the benefits of alternative fuels. But it was a nice day, and the bickering passed relatively quickly. An accident on the interstate meant they had to drive home on the backroads, and Britta rolled down her window and leaned back in the seat, closing her eyes as the sun warmed her face.

She sighed. “This is 37, huh?”

“Yep. Though your 37 is decidedly better than mine was.” Jeff admitted.

Britta snorted, but never opened her eyes. Jeff smiled to himself as he stopped at a red light. That fact that she was seemingly so very happy right now – with her life, with him-- gave him a strange sense of pride in his chest. But it wasn’t really pride. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was, but he loved seeing her so happy. And he was happy. After the chaos that had pretty much been his entire life, was this what normal people felt? Sitting at that red light, he was thinking of another nice day with her during his first year at Greendale, when he suddenly realized something.

“ _Crap.”_ He muttered to himself.

The car behind them honked, startling Britta awake. “Hey, it’s green,” she said, as he took his foot off the brake and began to drive.

____

The next morning, she was out on the front porch with her coffee, reading the paper they had picked up yesterday at the store when he came back from his run. She was in her old sweatshirt and pajama bottoms that Jeff had no memory of her ever bringing over, yet here they were. Her hair was pulled back and she didn’t have any makeup on.

The Jeff from 10 years ago would have hated this. Hell, the Jeff from four years ago would have hated this. The intrusion of having someone still there the next morning, invading his space, especially if that someone wasn’t young, hot, and at least 98% naked. Granted, she was still hot, and he would prefer her naked, but she was definitely older than when they had first met. Then again, so was he, as his aching body reminded him, and he was just glad to see her.

“You need to hear about this,” she said, not looking up from her paper as he came up the steps.

“I doubt it.” Jeff retorted, knowing whatever it was would likely be a Sunday morning buzzkill.

Undeterred, Britta started talking about some disaster happening overseas. Something about people, or animals, or the environment; he wasn’t really sure what it was about, but he let her rant on. He left the door open as he walked in to grab his water and put his shoes up.

“Are you listening?” she called out.

“No!” he called back from the kitchen.

“Well, you really should because…” and she continued to rant. Jeff sighed and walked back to the porch, sitting in the chair next to her, putting his feet up on the railing.

 _“Damn, it’s nice to be home.”_ He thought, looking out at the orange and red leaves on the trees, with that feeling in his chest from the day before returning.

He realized she had stopped talking, and was looking at him, annoyed.

“This is serious!” She said, gesturing to the paper.

“So, is this,” he started, putting his water down, looking over at her. “Why didn’t we get married before?

Britta blinked at him. “What?” Then she scowled. “If you’re just trying to get me to stop talking about—”

He cut her off. “ _No._ Well, ok, yes, I am, but that’s not the main reason I’m asking. Before, when we thought we were losing Greendale. It made sense for us to get married, until it didn’t. Why is that?”

Of all the things they had talked about, confessed to each other, this was one topic they hadn’t really covered before. They had joked about it, but now he needed to know.

“Jeff Winger, are you wanting to… talk about emotions? Sober?” She was mocking him, but put the paper down.

He rolled his eyes. “Consider it a birthday gift.”

Britta shrugged, “Well, I don’t know. I guess we just weren’t ready.” She paused. “What do you think it was?”

“I think,” he started carefully, looking out at the street, “Greendale was in crisis, and we were in crisis mode, and it seemed to be a good way out of that crisis. We were thinking ahead. Making an exit strategy. Then once the crisis was over, we didn’t have to worry about what came next, so that was it.”

Britta shrugged again. “I’ll agree to that. But don’t forget you were also a self-absorbed douche who had unresolved feelings for Annie.”

He nodded and brought his feet down off the rail. “Good point. And you were an obnoxious hypocrite that didn’t even bother to vote.”

They sat glaring at each other, not saying anything for a moment, until Britta gave a deep sigh. “What’s going on, Jeff? If you want me to leave, just say so. You’re the one who asked me to stay.”

She started to stand up, but he caught her arm and stopped her. “No, I’m sorry. I don’t want you to go. Actually, what I want…” He shifted his hand to hold hers. “What I want is for you to marry me.”

“Jeff,” Britta said slowly as she sat back down. “We’ve been down this road several times, and each time it just hasn’t worked out. Don’t you think that’s the universe trying to tell us something?”

“Yes, actually. I think the universe has been trying to tell us all along to get married, and we kept letting other things get in the way. It put us together at Greendale—”

Britta interrupted, “No, _you_ put us together at Greendale because, as you so eloquently put it before, you wanted to ‘nail’ me.”

Jeff nodded. “Still don’t regret it. But we were both _at_ Greendale taking Spanish. And if Abed was right, we were in the court house together, and then frozen yogurt place. The universe kept trying to put us together. When I asked you to marry me the first time—”

“Second,” Britta pointed out.

He looked at her confused. “Second?”

“Yeah, second. The first was Abed’s ‘wedding episode’ when you confessed to kissing Annie. I’m not counting the time at Shirley’s rehearsal though, because you never actually asked.” She grinned at him.

“Very true,” he conceded, “But what I’m trying to say is that when I asked you, it felt right, and you felt it, too. Until we got Greendale’d. Just like when we were first together, we were happy until the group found out, and we were Greendale’d then, too. We were both at low points in our lives when we enrolled, and that school chewed us up and made us fight until we became better versions of our selves. But now, we’ve come out on top.”

Britta laughed. “But we’re still there! Doesn’t that mean Greendale won?”

Jeff was adamant. “No, we _work_ there now. We’ve won. We’ve conquered Greendale.”

“So, you want to get married because we’re the last ones standing at Greendale? We should spend the rest of our lives together because we’ve won the universe’s paintball game that is Greendale? Not buying it, Winger,” she said finishing her coffee, certain now that this conversation wasn’t going anywhere.

Jeff adjusted his seat. This wasn’t going where he had wanted it to. “No, that’s not what I mean. I want us to get married because I’ve come to realize that Greendale doesn’t matter. Neither does all the chaos that we used to thrive on. We were the first ones and the last ones, and everything in between, even when we weren’t together. I see that now. The other day in the car, you were happy, and I realized that I was happy. But not just happy, but really at peace for probably the first time in my life. I wasn’t hiding anything, there weren’t any games, there weren't any underlying questions or anger. It was just, you and me, coming home. And I wondered if that’s what normal people felt like on a regular basis, and then it hit me…”

Britta sat motionless as he paused, no longer knowing where this was going.

“I realized that the only thing I actually learned from that damn school - the only thing I can still remember from a single class- is the importance of ‘seizing the day.’ I no longer care anymore what it’s like for other people. I don’t care what it was like for our parents. I don’t care what Greendale throws at us. Or what our friends may think – _especially_ what our friends think. Or even what old Jeff and old Britta would think.”

“You _are_ old Jeff,” she teased.

“Shut it,” he shot back with a grin before continuing. “At the time, when we kissed that day, crazy what’s-his-name said that it was a life changing kiss. And I’ve never forgotten that. And now I realize it really was, because here we are. And for the first time it no longer matters to me any of the baggage or crap opinions we bring to the table now, because all I care about is you, and me, and this moment. I want to marry you because… you are the _only_ thing I care about anymore, and this is the moment and the universe I want to live in.”

Jeff sat back, having said what he needed to say, and waited for her response. He honestly wasn’t sure what she’d say, but he was still glad he had said it.

After sitting quietly for a moment, Britta leaned forward and wrapped both hands around his.

“Wow,” she started, “that was one helluva a Winger speech.”

He laughed and tilted his head. “Yeah, I guess it was. But it was honest. And I know honesty is your thing _._ ”

“That it is,” she said grinning at the memory of the first time around the study table. “Can I think about it?”

He nodded, and then thought of something else. Something else he had learned during his time at Greendale, and something that made him sure this was right.

“And I want you to know, I also know you. I know you want to be settled, but not give up the fight to make the world a better place. And even though I may not listen to every article you read, I promise I will be there for you, just like you’ve always been there for me. This will be our home and I will always bail you out of jail if it gets to that point. And I know you don’t want to be anyone’s property, so I will agree to whatever terms you want. Hell, I’ll sign everything over to you, and you can own me.” 

He gave her a look at her as she laughed at that. “I’m not kidding,” he said.

“Would you change your last name to Perry?” Britta teased.

The question caught him by surprise, as did his own answer. “I would not mind if you wanted to keep your last name, and I would actually be willing to _consider_ a new last name suitable for both of us.”

Britta looked thoughtful. “Hmm, Mr. & Mrs. Pinger. I can see it on the towels already.”

Jeff cringed. “I said _‘suitable for both’_.” 

He then continued, more seriously this time, “I know you may also be worried about getting bored, or about me getting bored, or that we may fight too much, or we may just not last. And being honest, I… can’t promise any of that won’t happen. I can’t promise it because _you_ know _me._ I’m worried about it, too. But if those are the fears we have to deal with, then so be it. We’ll handle them together. I meant it when I said I no longer cared about any bagging we may bring. Though now I am worried the baggage tag may have ‘Pinger’ on it.”

With that, the mood lifted. They smiled at each other for a moment before Britta finally stood up and stretched. She believed him, every word. But she was going to make him wait for her response.

 _“_ How can I take you seriously when you don’t even have a ring? _”_ she asked in mock horror, appreciating her own irony. She then leaned down to kiss him slowly.

“I’m going to take my shower.”

“Want company?” He grinned up at her.

She kissed him again. “Lead the way, Mr. Pinger.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic in 20 years (Sam/Dan are my OG pairing) (IFYKYK). Very minimal editing, so please forgive me.
> 
> (Updated end note. S6 isn't as bad as I thought, but I still think they treated Britta unfairly.)
> 
> K. Thanks. Bye.


End file.
